To Give a Defense
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Wrong information is being given out at Fake Site News. That could be a lede on any day, but their latest nonsense about the Holy Father—that he somehow approves of same-sex civil unions—is so bad it spans parallel universes beyond what we’ve learned to expect even from them. Crisis!!! also joins them in their scandalous false report. (For it is no less than that.)
Do I Have to Catch You Out?
So here’s what happened. A new book has come out, called Politics and Society. It is an interview with Pope Francis, conducted by French journalist Dominique Wolton. Aleteia has excerpts. In it, Wolton asks the pope, among other things, about same-sex marriage. Here is reply, in full, with nothing left out.
What can we think of marriage between people of the same sex? “Matrimony” is a historical word. Always, in humanity, and not just in the Church, it was a man and a woman. It’s not possible to change it just like that. … It’s not possible to change it. It is part of nature. That’s how it is. Let us call it, then, “civil unions.” Let us not play with truths.
It’s true that behind all this we find gender ideology. In books, kids learn that it’s possible to change one’s sex. Could gender, to be a woman or to be a man, be an option and not a fact of nature? This leads to this error.
Let us call things by their names. Matrimony is between a man and a woman. This is the precise term. Let us call the same-sex union a “civil union.”
Now the pope says nothing more alarming here than that we should not call same-sex unions “marriage.” Is that supposed to shock us? Let us find another term for them, the pope says—civil unions,” if you will, but not “marriage.” Words mean things. Two men can not marry, two women can not marry, because marriage is man and woman. Two people of the same sex are something else. The pope has no broader meaning than that. Big shock: He’s Catholic.
Words Are Made to Bend
But now watch how Fake Site News—the credulous call it LifeSite—twists the plain meaning, out of any semblance to truth. They do this because it suits their typical schtick of bashing the Vicar of Christ. It’s all unconscious reflex over there. The title of the article, by Pete Baklinski, is: “Pope Francis signals support for legal recognition of same-sex ‘civil unions.” (Yes, they really are that absurd.) To support this dumb claim, Mr. Baklinski cites the very same passage that I just quoted to you. They add nothing to it, since there was nothing else to add.
But no. Pope Francis signaled nothing of the kind. He did not say, “Same-sex unions? I approve of those!” What he said was, “Same-sex unions? Let’s not call them marriage.” They exist, so we must call them something, but not marriage. There is nothing in theh pope’s words that can fairly be construed as signalling support for civil unions. That’s just not in the text. If I said, “Let us call things by their names; this is murder,” that does not mean I am “signaling approval” for murder. I mean, come on. Fake Site News Is asking us to believe utter moonshine.
The Fake Site article ran on September 7, and somehow they still have readers. But that does not really surprise me; for the time would come when many would not endure sound doctrine, when many would have itching ears, would heap unto themselves false teacher, would turn aside unto fables. And so it is. Thus today, Crisis!!! picked up the Fake News fable and ran a post by Fr. Regis Scanlon. “If the translation of the pope’s statement is accurate,” says Scanlon, “the pope appears to be willing to recognize homosexual couples living together as legal ‘civil unions.'”
Now that is absurd. I mean, the quotation is accurate; I don’t dispute the accuracy of the quotation. But I most certainly dispute Fr.’s utterly nonsensical reading of it, which he apes from Mr. Baklinski. Because the pope says nothing—nothing—about “recognizing” or “accepting” anything. (Take your pick of verbs here.) If I said, “Let us call things by their names; waterboarding is torture,” that does not mean I “accept” torture. I just mean don’t call it “enhanced interrogation.” Don’t use words to lie. You see what the pope is saying?
Pope Francis Derangement Syndrome has gotten so far out of hand that people have plain lost their ability to read. And so they read into.
Twisted Truth & Half the News
But Fr. Scanlon does not end there. Anon he continues, thus:
According to … reports, the pope is willing to do this because he wants persons in homosexual relationships to be able to obtain medical and other social benefits which can only be obtained if they are living in a “union” under the titles of “marriage” or “civil union.” So, the pope is choosing the title of “civil union” as the lesser of two evils for the sake of obtaining health and social benefits for homosexual couples. He wants to be kind and merciful.
What “reports”? Where is he getting all of this wildness from? Fr. Scanlon does not enlighten us. He repeats Rumor. The whole context of the pope’s words has to do with the true meaning of the word “marriage.” “Marriage” is between a man and a woman only, the pope says (lest we forget, he’s Catholic); so a union between two people of the same sex can’t be called “marriage.” We must call it something else. End stop. Don’t read anything further into it. The pope says nothing about medical benefits. Fr. Scanlon makes this up; or, he trusts Rumor and reads Rumor into a discussion of something else.
“But there is an enormous problem,” Fr. Scanlon continues, “with this attempt to accommodate civil society.”
Fr., please. I must stop you there. The pope says nothing about “accomodating” anything. That is nowhere to be found, anywhere in what the pope says. You make this up why?
But Fr. Scanlon is not done; of course he’s not. “When the pope,” he goes on, “recognizes the giving of financial help to homosexual couples under the umbrella of a ‘civil union,’ he unwittingly disparages chastity.”
He disparages chastity? By saying that same-sex unions are not marriage and must be called something else, for the sake of truth? The pope says nothing about “financial help.” Where is that in what the pope said? It’s not there. Fr. Scanlon tells us the pope said something the pope did not say. Isn’t there a word for that? If the pope did say this, in some other interview than the one we’re presently looking at, Fr. Scanlon will have to direct us to where we can find it. But he does not. Instead he appeals to vague “reports.”
Some You Can’t Disguise
Thus I say to you: Pope Francis Derangment Syndrome has gotten so bad that Fr. Scanlon and Mr. Baklinski can quote the pope accurately, but still attribute to his words a meaning wildly—and I do mean wildly—at odds with what they plainly say. The pope says, “Marriage is only between a man and a woman, a union between two men is something else,” and then Fake Site and Crisis!!! report: Pope approves of same-sex unions! This may go beyond mere derangement. It is laughably, and transparently, false. It is so utterly absurd that it can only be met with derision.
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